Many people start a meditation practice and then drop out. I want to come up with a list of some techniques to keep them going. Please add or comment on the following suggestions. 1. Attend meditation group meetings regularly even if they meet hours away and you can only go once a month 2. Try and go on a retreat at least once a year. 3. Use guided meditation tapes when your practice is going through some rough times. There are plenty on the Internet 3 Vary your practice. Sometimes I will concentrate on vedana, sometimes on letting phenomena go, sometimes on just returning my attention back when it goes away, sometimes on the hindrances. Usually I do vipassana but sometimes switch to samadhi. Sometimes I start off with samadhi meditation counting 200 breath cycles and then switch to vipassana. If I am doing samadhi, I might pay attention to 8 focus points, i.e., beginning and end of in breath and out breath plus the two turnarounds. I might pick one point to start and then go to the next point and so on. Then I would put them all together. 4. Start off with walking meditation. 5. I have some CD's with nature sounds that I use sometimes while meditating. I rarely use these but it helped when I was going through a rough patch last year. 6. One thing I learned when I ran a lot was to just get out the door. That was my goal. Once I did that, I almost always finished my scheduled run. This translates into a meditation practice by blocking out a time and just starting. 7. Count breaths (1-10 and repeat) and note whatever came up. 8. Start off with setting intentions or purpose. Mahayana Buddhists say the following Bodhisattva Vow: However innumerable sentient beings are, I vow to save them. However inexhaustible the defilements are, I vow to extinguish them. However immeasurable the dharmas are, I vow to master them. Howver incomparable enlightenment is, I vow to attain it. For a time, I would use a variation of this by saying: My purpose is to alleviate stress and suffering for myself, all those I touch and all beings. 9. Say to yourself at the start of meditation, I have nothing better to do in the next 25 or whatever minutes. 10. Use a mala, worry beads or rosary to count breaths. 11. Try to meditate at the same time each day. 12. During the meditation session, investigate whatever resistance comes up.

When our goal in life changes to tranquility of mind, our thoughts, speech, and actions will fall in line directed towards this goal. You don't have to push yourself to meditate. Meditation will automatically occur in you because meditation is the means to the goal you are pursuing. Your life is going in that direction. You don't have to make any effort. You don't have to make any resolution. You don't need to have will-power to meditate. Willpower is the result of meditation, and not a means to it. You don't have to force yourself to meditate. You don't have to say, "I don't have any time, I have to make time." You will automatically have time because that is what you want to do. If you really want to do something you will have time. You don't have time only when you are not really interested in doing something.

16. No matter how busy you are, or how much in a rush, just take 5 minutes each morning to sit and breathe mindfully.

While this may sound very trivial, it actually helps you to keep your (meditation) momentum going. When you find yourself able to allocate time to practice again, you'll find it easier to "hop back in".

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

If it wasn't for Dukkha, the Noble Eightfold Path (including meditation) would be without purpose. Working backwards, it's Dukkha that we need to understand in order to spur an impetus for practice. Once we can see the burns we've been given by craving, we can start looking in earnest for a way out.

The more we practice, the more we see Dukkha, the more we see Dukkha, the more we practice.

mettaJack

"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

The thing that I've found helps me stay on top of it is to force myself to make up for any missed meditation by doing it before bed at the last minute. Eventually it sinks in that you better get it done earlier so that it doesn't have to cut into sleep-time.

And what's the reward for meeting your meditation goal for the day? .....more meditation.

What happens during your meditation time is connected to every single other thing you do in your day. Therefore it is impossible to devellop in meditation if outside of that time you keep fulfilling your cravings. You must get your 5 sila perfect.

You must absolutely abandon any sexual activity, otherwise you can't even reach the first jhana, not to mention intoxicants.

You must restrain yourself in entertainments, ideally suppress them all (TV, movies, music, getting out with friends who are deeply concerned with fulfilling desires, parties etc.).

Don't get yourself busy with the world. Guard your sense doors, don't get involved in sense pleasures. Give up as many responsabilities as possible, they bother your meditation very much. Don't watch the news, you will always be told when something really important happens.

Cultivate wholesome thoughts for everyone. Practice metta bhavana after each sitting for a few minutes.

You also better restrain yourself in food, not eating at night, or very lightly. Restrain in sleep, decrease your time of sleep, because you don't need to sleep 8 nor 7 nor even 6 hours a night. You can very rightly transform your time of sleep into time for meditation.

Generally speaking, go to the essential, only perform deeds which are absolutely necessary, give up all other activities and get to sit whenever you managed some free time.

Dukkhanirodha wrote:Well some items may be added to the above mentioned lists.

What happens during your meditation time is connected to every single other thing you do in your day. Therefore it is impossible to devellop in meditation if outside of that time you keep fulfilling your cravings. You must get your 5 sila perfect.

You must absolutely abandon any sexual activity, otherwise you can't even reach the first jhana, not to mention intoxicants.

You must restrain yourself in entertainments, ideally suppress them all (TV, movies, music, getting out with friends who are deeply concerned with fulfilling desires, parties etc.).

Don't get yourself busy with the world. Guard your sense doors, don't get involved in sense pleasures. Give up as many responsabilities as possible, they bother your meditation very much. Don't watch the news, you will always be told when something really important happens.

Cultivate wholesome thoughts for everyone. Practice metta bhavana after each sitting for a few minutes.

You also better restrain yourself in food, not eating at night, or very lightly. Restrain in sleep, decrease your time of sleep, because you don't need to sleep 8 nor 7 nor even 6 hours a night. You can very rightly transform your time of sleep into time for meditation.

Generally speaking, go to the essential, only perform deeds which are absolutely necessary, give up all other activities and get to sit whenever you managed some free time.

But the best instructions are given by the Buddha himself

So which came first the renunciation or the meditation?

adosa

"To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas" - Dhammapada 183